seaweavehttps://seaweave.wordpress.com
from the depths to the surfaceWed, 21 Feb 2018 08:39:09 +0000enhourly1http://wordpress.com/https://s2.wp.com/i/buttonw-com.pngseaweavehttps://seaweave.wordpress.com
https://seaweave.wordpress.com/2016/01/11/319/
https://seaweave.wordpress.com/2016/01/11/319/#commentsMon, 11 Jan 2016 03:25:06 +0000http://seaweave.wordpress.com/?p=319This blog has come full circle and it’s time to say goodbye. Enjoy the archives if you are inclined and thank you to readers for the gifts of time and presence. May wisdom and wildness be yours.

]]>https://seaweave.wordpress.com/2016/01/11/319/feed/4labaliennewild world.jpgWildhttps://seaweave.wordpress.com/2015/12/24/wild/
https://seaweave.wordpress.com/2015/12/24/wild/#respondThu, 24 Dec 2015 11:36:25 +0000http://seaweave.wordpress.com/?p=312There is something powerful about doing the same activity again and again. It becomes a meditation, creating familiarity that comforts and challenges the bodymind to be present in different ways each time. I find this with walking, and live close to Roaring Beach, a 2km long stretch of coast in southern Tasmania. I walk this beach day after day. I tell myself it is for the benefit of the dog, who joyously, madly accompanies me. The dog tells herself it is for the benefit of the human.

It is the same walk, the same beach each time, but also different each day. I know the changing contours of this coastal stretch. It is an intimate place, to think and process and to enjoy the light and language of the sea. A place to stretch. A place for poetry.

The terrain has been mapped on my inner life too, drawn in daily presence, like a sacred carving. The sea has sculpted me, as much as the rocks on the shore that are being gradually eroded. This same sea erodes my disconnection from life. It wakes me up as I take each step on the shoreline. This is my beloved environment. When I can see this anew, I’m full of wonder, and compassion for this world, for the beauty of seaweed flung about or in the fleeting sparkle of green light reflected on a wave break. These are small things. So when something big happens, a profound astonishment follows.

Recently dolphins came to Roaring. The tide was way out. It was afternoon and I walked close to the sea edge, on packed sand. From one end of the beach to the other, they swam alongside. At first this seemed a happy coincidence. I watched their dark and shiny fins breaking the surface of the water, and tried to keep pace with them as they swam along the coast. Nobody else around but dolphins, at least 12, and me. After some time of this merry accompaniment, I stopped on the shore, looking as the dolphins played, less than 5 metres away, in shallow water. Suddenly two of them, in unison, rode a wave in. They were surfing! I could see their bodies through the clear wave and squealed with delight. I thought they may be beached, coming so close, but quickly they angled backwards, returning to the depths.

I continued to walk. They continued to swim, and dive, and jump out of the water at times. At the far end of the beach, where I could go no further, I turned to face them, and did not want the tribe to keep moving on. I waved my arms about and cried hello, making a real ruckus. A couple of dolphins came in and slowly their heads emerged from the water, looking in my direction, it seemed, for a brief and holy moment. And across the species divide, we made contact. It felt that we were curiously reaching out to each other. I understood their wild consciousness, so deep and alive and free. I wonder what they understood about my humanity.

Only through encountering wild things, am I able to be human, and make sense of things, to belong. It is wildness that makes us visible to ourselves, through a realisation that there is something vast and alive here. Consciousness has the ability to manifest so differently, so playfully in this world. It may be the curve of a sand dune or a more significant experience with sea creatures, but these encounters have the potential to bring us face to face with life itself. We are not alone in our beingness, which is wilder than we usually imagine. We are interconnected and there is peace and joy in this knowledge.

The documentary Black Hole tells a story of passion, abuse and corporate lawlessness in operation in Australia today. Really it’s an account of community, not just one, but three interlinked groups and their painful wrestling match with another community, that of Whitehaven, a coal extraction company in the northern region of New South Wales. Over two hours long, the documentary was conceived by someone with a love of people in their environment, and with their complex humanity on show. I couldn’t look away, despite my deep dread for what has overtaken this place.

The Gomeroi people, the Aboriginal community who perform ceremony on the land, a state reserve called the Leard State Forest, are revealed to be powerless in the face of the coal mining company’s desire to clear the environment and blast another ‘black hole’ in the ground. Further to this, they are mocked by security guards and employees of the mine, and are destabilised as Whitehaven seeks Aboriginal approval for their work from outside country.

The rural town and surrounding farmlands of the Maules Creek mine are also presented as powerless in the face of the coal company’s desire to transport black profits through the town, day and night. Coal trains are not required by law to be covered and dust from the loot, as well as light pollution, noise and disappearing river systems have irrevocably changed the landscape of the region. For example, people in town can no longer drink their tank water as soot settles like a fine, dark sheath across roofs and houses. The people are disregarded and their wellbeing of little consequence when it comes to the ‘black hole.’

The final community is protestors, who are a disparate group of environmental activists that work hard to raise awareness and also disrupt, non-violently, the earthworks of the coal mining company. Some are rough-looking, many are young, passionate hippy-types, others appear to be conservative, middle-class citizens, there are some older people as well, those who have lived through wars. As they camp near the mine, to witness and blockade, they are also powerless in the face of the coal mining company’s right to bulldoze the forest gums. And further they are publically vilified and intimidated by local police and security agencies who do the bidding of Whitehaven.

While I’ve presented them as three separate communities, they are not. Each is vulnerable and interlinked with the others. Each has their own focus, but as a collective, there are many layers to their stories, many reasons to fight the mine. The beautiful thing about this film is that the different groups reveal each other’s strength in face of overwhelming loss. The only community voice missing here is that of the mining company. Unyielding silence is what comes across from Whitehaven, and yet, their actions speak so loudly.

What I’m left with after watching Black Hole is sadness and questions of personal meaning. The Gomeroi, farming people and protestors exhibited their hearts and were willing to take risks to protect the land, yet ultimately were unsuccessful this time. The soft tissue of their humanity was on show in the face of abuse from this multi-national company. Whereas the administrators of the coal mining corporation, including security, police, executives, bankers and even politicians showed their hearts to be much like the coal that comes out the earth – stony and hard.

This is a religious motif which says to be a spiritual person one’s being (or heart) should gradually become soft and sinuous as opposed to a stony type of life, which is characterised by ruthlessness. What is my heart made of? Black Hole challenges the viewer to reflect upon community as a site of great power and also powerlessness. And to ask ourselves deep questions about the roles we inhabit in this world system. Can we turn away from this cycle of destruction, individually and as a collective? Can we soften into a compassionate, even spiritual, relationship with the planet? What risks, for the pursuit of good, will we take amid evidence of greed and corruption? Now is the time to find our answers.

]]>https://seaweave.wordpress.com/2015/10/21/seaweed/feed/0labalienneseaweed bubblescloudy groundthe Golden Rulehttps://seaweave.wordpress.com/2015/10/01/the-golden-rule/
https://seaweave.wordpress.com/2015/10/01/the-golden-rule/#commentsThu, 01 Oct 2015 00:18:23 +0000http://seaweave.wordpress.com/?p=280In the late 1960’s and early 70’s a collection of people began to actively witness the earth’s destruction as a form of protest. Twelve individuals made their way to the Arctic and watched as nuclear tests took place on Amchitka, an outlying island of Alaska, home to falcons, eagles and endangered sea otters. Their purpose was to see and listen, to the lust for power and to the earth’s response. To express their opposition to nuclear warfare through the simplicity of presence.

And so Greenpeace was born. And the first boat set sail the same year I was born, 1971, on September 15, six days before my arrival on the planet. I love that this movement, still active and vital today, was birthed out of the activities of presence and listening.

Key members of this team were Quakers and the original idea had come from Quaker activity. “The Quakers in 1958 tried to sail a ship to Bikini Atoll in the South Pacific protesting the atmospheric testings of H-bombs. The name of the ship was the Golden Rule.”[1] The Quaker fellowship, the Society of Friends, has a particular focus upon listening. During meetings, members often sit in silence, taking long moments to feel sacred presence, and become comfortable with awareness. It is a daily, deep attuning to love at the heart of life. What can come about from this deep awareness?

For those early activists what arose was a desire to perceive injustice further afield, to hear the planet’s calls and listen to the voice of presence in the wind, the sea and animal life. To bear witness to cries of abuse around the globe. To be a source of hope and change through beholding injustice.

When we, as individuals attend to life, a place of vulnerability can emerge, an open-hearted space that will eventually ask something of us, whether that be direct action or an internal shift in perspective and behaviour. Listening, perceiving, attending is not passive, it is something powerful and still the basis of activism. The ability to be deeply present is a skill that can create open space for the life of the other, in its most raw and full sense of being alive.

To be able to perceive the cyclical energy of the forest, to witness shifting light and the dynamic glory of the sea, to understand a little of vast planetary interconnections takes a great deal of attending. And it’s this sort of perception that can challenge us to stop colluding with systemic injustice and shift the masks of protection we so easily embrace. It’s deep awareness that makes us soft and human again, so that we can live into the golden rule.

]]>https://seaweave.wordpress.com/2015/10/01/the-golden-rule/feed/2labalienneQueer Nationhttps://seaweave.wordpress.com/2015/08/14/queer-nation/
https://seaweave.wordpress.com/2015/08/14/queer-nation/#commentsFri, 14 Aug 2015 02:08:27 +0000http://seaweave.wordpress.com/?p=274My first introduction to queer culture, or the gay lifestyle, was as a teenager in the 1980’s. Like most teens I spent a lot of time in my bedroom listening to music and taking drugs. Growing up in the Sunshine State, I was an outsider and hated sunshine for a start! Dressed in black, I was interested in darkly creative pursuits such as Wicca, and was mostly alienated from my family during these years. I hungered for another type of life, away from the rural suburb, the working-class conventions and the strange Pentecostal Christian beliefs that I was raised with.

Music was an opening into a much broader imaginative world, especially music that questioned heterosexual norms. Two favourites were Bronski Beat and the Communards, who sang about men loving men, while critiquing the bible. There were many more, like Depeche Mode and Tracy Chapman whose haunting, challenging lyrics set me on a journey of discovery that has not ended.

I had to get out.

A young woman, 17 years of age, living on the streets, sleeping in many different beds, in and out of homeless shelters for a number of years, again it was queer culture that introduced me to the specifics of safe sex practice. In the early 1990’s, the era of AIDS awareness, it was via gay activists, inclusive zines, gender queer friends and outreach workers who were themselves deviant that I came to understand the importance of using clean needles, and having protected intercourse with women and men, while avoiding extreme violence. Together they showed me how to live into the concept of harm minimization, without stigma.

I was beginning to understand my place in the world as a unique adult human.

In more recent years I have surrounded myself with non-gender conforming individuals and also become a part of the academic culture that is working to break down heteronormativity. There are sex workers I have known and loved such as Ali, Chris, Jo and Anthony, who broke the rules of being gay and straight, giving the gift of expansive life to me. And thinkers like Judith Butler whose scholarship shows that gender identity is always a performance within a system. How does the system expect us to behave? Queer theologians like Bob Goss, former Catholic priest and long-time activist and scholar in the US, whose own account of coming out (and all that entailed within a religious system) is breathtaking. And finally, importantly, my local lesbian community whose friendship and support in recent years has been integral to my flourishing in an isolated area of Australia.

For these people and many more, I am grateful.

So when Christian leaders make statements like ‘We don’t approve of the gay lifestyle’ what are they really articulating here? First of all they are denouncing homosexual sexual activity. Promiscuity and sex outside of marriage is condemned. LGBTQI people are judged as being voraciously sexual and focused upon one thing only. Human beings are reduced to fucking machines. This is a capitulation to stereotyping in an effort to dismiss the possibility of a rich and varied life, not a lifestyle. Neither does heterosexual promiscuity rate a mention in this debate.

Secondly, difference, deviance and questions are erased as traditional gender norms are reinstated as being God’s plan for humanity. There is no sense of ‘we are in this together’ or ‘we are on a journey exploring the sacred in the world’ or even ‘let’s use our power to challenge oppressive gender regimes.’ Religious authority is used, via sweeping statements, to narrow the field of divinity and discriminate against anyone who does not perform essentialist gendered roles based upon monogamous heterosexuality.

Finally, stigma is reinforced by focusing solely upon the cliché of homosexual promiscuity, and thus condemning the abundant, sacred gifts that queer individuals and culture has bestowed upon this world.

My own interactions with those who are gender non-conforming has revealed ways of being that are reasoned, peaceful and mature. I have found life, wisdom, beauty and community around the queers! Christians, especially religious leaders, who fail to acknowledge the nuances and breadth of queer culture are not adding anything of value to the current discussion about human rights. There is no moral authority in this position, rather what is revealed is an ethical limitation. An inability to learn from ‘others’ in their own beingness and appreciate the unique perspectives that lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer and intersex persons bring to the table of life.

]]>https://seaweave.wordpress.com/2015/08/14/queer-nation/feed/1labaliennethings that grow in the darkhttps://seaweave.wordpress.com/2015/07/13/things-that-grow-in-the-dark/
https://seaweave.wordpress.com/2015/07/13/things-that-grow-in-the-dark/#respondMon, 13 Jul 2015 03:08:12 +0000http://seaweave.wordpress.com/?p=271I work in a cave. It is my other job, an unusual occupation, not my career but I have learnt a lot through this work. I know much more about scientific method and how knowledge is developed through hypothesis. To understand karst systems, one needs to be comfortable not having all of the answers. I’ve also learnt how to be present with people in a way that opens up the environment, allowing them to build their own humane connections with the earth. And of course I have come to know something about darkness and light.

But I am not a natural caver. As a child visiting a cave in New South Wales, Australia, I was terrified by what the guide told us, just before turning the lights out. He said that your eyes never adjust to the darkness under the earth, and if trapped there, you would eventually go crazy; your mind turning as black as the cave itself. As a five year old, those words were seared upon me. There was a darkness within that could take over.

I was terrified of the dark as a kid, there were many bad dreams in the night. Even as an adult, at times, the dark has been menacing to me. And in Tasmania, where I live, throughout the winter months it can feel as if darkness is wrapping itself around your life. Many Tasmanians flee this, and heard north for respite and warmth through the coldest season.

Now that I am a guide, it’s my job to facilitate an appreciation and understanding of the dark. I also do black-outs although I don’t tell visitors they will go crazy by remaining in the cave without lights. And I have come to appreciate this experience of subterranean darkness for what it brings up to the surface. Sometimes people giggle in the dark, they often talk, whisper and hold onto each other or shuffle around, becoming agitated and a few months ago, in the blackness, a man proclaimed loudly, “This is what death will be like!” There was nervous laughter all around. We fear the dark and are uncomfortable with it.

I usually work afternoon shifts at the cave, and sometimes, late in the day, as dusk takes hold, no one arrives for the scheduled tour. Then it’s my job to go into the cave, right down into the deepest chamber and collect first-aid equipment, returning it to the office. In the last few weeks, I have challenged myself several times to go in there and turn the lights out, doing a black-out on my own. This is not something I can do very often, if tired or emotional, I’m not capable of being there, alone in blackness. Because what emerges is primal fear. It is a sort of terror that becomes greater than my body or being and seems to surround me, filling up the entire chamber. It is fear that is beyond my control. In reality I know that the cave is made up of rock, space, air, drips of water and calcium. But in the dark, I easily imagine demons or ghosts, personifying what I cannot name or subdue. I fear someone is behind me, I fear someone is in front. A looming face in the darkness.

It is fear of the other that arises. I project onto the cave my own fears, my own darkness. In those moments of pitch black, I am being confronted by the other that lives in me, my “share of human darkness, hidden inside my soul.” These are the words of Helen Garner, who has written much about the dark habits of human beings. She says, “I’m interested in apparently ordinary people who, under life’s unbearable pressure, burst through the very fine membrane that separates our daylight selves from the secret darkness that lives in every one of us.”

In that cold place in the cave, the secret darkness that lives in me is unleashed a little. As hard as it is, this is a good thing because in coming to accept the dark, to hold steady with fear, I am learning to meet the ultimate darkness that eventually overtakes us all. The other that is death.

Strangely though, light is not entirely absent from the cave experience. Alongside this deep darkness is the presence of luminosity. Cave crystal is always translucent. This means that it absorbs light. The mineral (in this case calcium) allows light to shine through and does not block it, but instead begins to glow. In other words, it lights up. Why would crystal have this ability? It grows in darkness and lives in pitch black. But when light is present, when an exterior light source shines directly onto cave crystal, the depth of the stone is truly revealed, with all its dirt and flaws, colour and luminous beauty. As much as I am familiar with how they are formed, having recounted the story of crystals hundreds of times for visitors, it remains a mystery to me as to why translucency is a necessary quality in there.

This can also be a metaphor for our lives. In darkness, below the surface, there is luminescence, growing in strange shapes, through the movement of dripping acidic water as it dissolves rock and earth, depositing minerals. It happens slowly. Over many years something beautiful is formed, something that is soft but stable. Something that is comfortable with darkness, but holds onto light. The luminosity of cave crystal is “comfort like grace, not earned, not deserved” in Garner’s words. It is something to treasure, not to fear.

]]>https://seaweave.wordpress.com/2015/07/13/things-that-grow-in-the-dark/feed/0labaliennephoto courtesy of www.eyeseetasmania.com.aulosing my religionhttps://seaweave.wordpress.com/2015/06/16/losing-my-religion/
https://seaweave.wordpress.com/2015/06/16/losing-my-religion/#respondTue, 16 Jun 2015 10:37:16 +0000http://seaweave.wordpress.com/?p=267As a follow-up to the previous post, I have been considering the place of Christian religion within my life. In the interests of striking a balance, it’s important to acknowledge the abundance of personal growth that has occurred for me as a direct result of religious involvement.

For many years, the church provided a structured spiritual space to facilitate healing from inner wounds, and helped me reorient towards the world, rather than away from it. Addictions, despair and meaninglessness that would have ensured an early death were gradually released through the message of Christ and in the process, openness, beauty and purpose became foundational as a way of life. I still have a deep sense of the sacred in the symbols of death and resurrection and can see this as a life principle at work in the earth. But I saw it first in Christianity.

I have known some wonderful human beings in Christian circles. Lifelong friends, people who are kind, loving, truth-seekers and thoughtful individuals. Being part of an embodied community can facilitate identity re-creation (and also pain) and helps me understand the motif of being ‘born again and again and again’ as a daily task best done with others. In community, we are enfolded into belonging and becoming.

Finally, I’ve had a glimpse of the mysteries of Life. All religions offer small insights into what is commonly known as God, and through studying theology, church attendance, prayer and meditation I’ve seen something of that which I would call divine:

A player who takes the risk.

An energetic presence that gets me up in the morning.

An acidic water that dissolves this heart of stone for crystal.

An ocean that leaves random messages of love along the shoreline.

A compassionate someone that keeps me hanging on despite the lack of answers about my own existence.

The art of a curved charcoal line drawn quickly on white paper.

Planetary wisdom.

Ultimately, I’ve left organised religion because that which is sacred cannot be contained by religious codes of belief and moralising. The old symbolics of Christianity are now tired, outlived, ragged. I like my divinity excessive, extravagant and wild, not at all dogmatic. In Oranges are not the Only Fruit by Jeannette Winterson, she talks about the process of art-making and says “the damp small confines of the mediocre and the gradual corrosion of beauty and light, the compromising and the settling; these things make good work impossible.”[1] They also make God impossible.

So finally, with Winterson’s wise words: “Everyone, at some time in their life, must choose whether to stay with a ready-made world that may be safe but which is also limiting, or to push forward, often past the frontiers of commonsense, into a personal place, unknown and untried.”[2]

I’m making a conscious choice to push forward, with gratitude for past Christian frontiers, but now into a new space, yet unknown.

]]>https://seaweave.wordpress.com/2015/06/16/losing-my-religion/feed/0labalienner-e-s-p-e-c-thttps://seaweave.wordpress.com/2015/05/31/r-e-s-p-e-c-t/
https://seaweave.wordpress.com/2015/05/31/r-e-s-p-e-c-t/#respondSun, 31 May 2015 01:54:42 +0000http://seaweave.wordpress.com/?p=260In Teaching to Trangress, bell hooks tells a tale of the awakening of students. As she teaches them critical thinking, they are exposed to systems of injustice based upon sexism, racism and classism within the text and social structures. Old ways of being that were taken for granted are seen anew. Life, people and situations are perceived differently. Once this is comprehended, a decolonising of the mind begins to take place. ‘Be transformed by the renewing of your mind’ is the instruction here. It is an exciting process, but also chilling to note how paradigms of inequality are embedded within and without.

Her students report a great discomfort at this stage. “We take your class. We learn to look at the world from a critical standpoint, one that considers race, sex, and class. And we can’t enjoy life anymore.”[1] bell hooks response is magnificent. There is no denial or pushing away the discomfort, there is no turning back or away from the process. Instead she says,

As I’ve worked hard to decentre a Pentecostal Christian framework from my own life, pain has emerged. It’s easy to stay with dogma and tradition, especially after formative spiritual experience that seemed to resonate with Christian principles. It’s challenging to critically evaluate and discard that which is flimsy, absurd and also deeply sexist. I still fear I’m doing the wrong thing by working to destabilise Christianity in my academic writing. Yet it is a process of self-examination and displacement, but with compelling awareness of deeper truth that I am unable to turn away from. I enjoyed the stability of religious belief for many years, but it became a cage. Ultimately, I believe that the clarity of critical knowledge is able to break through cages of mind and spirit. This is what hooks calls education as the practice of freedom. Yet it brings forth a lot of discomfort, even agony.

What does it mean to respect the pain of letting go of unjust religious teachings? Respect implies honour, and space for recognition. It means being truthful about how it feels. Respect for pain is an interesting concept to me. I usually try to escape hurt and anguish, but hooks is convinced that creating an open space for the pain of structural awareness is a fruitful process. Respect means treating the pain as a friend, valuing what the experience brings. It is holding hurt with gentleness and allowing it to inform and guide the process of becoming.

]]>https://seaweave.wordpress.com/2015/05/31/r-e-s-p-e-c-t/feed/0labalienneThe Eyes Have Ithttps://seaweave.wordpress.com/2015/04/30/the-eyes-have-it/
https://seaweave.wordpress.com/2015/04/30/the-eyes-have-it/#respondThu, 30 Apr 2015 04:18:37 +0000http://seaweave.wordpress.com/?p=256 ‘her wounds came from the same source as her power’

What does it mean to write into one’s wounds? Adrienne Rich and Cheryl Strayed both illuminate this perspective as a source of power in poetic expression. As a creative woman, I’ve come to see that it means not rejecting pain, but making room for it in one’s own daily life and reality. It means treating the hurt as a friend, teacher, comrade, fellow traveller, an intimate companion, a wrestling partner. It means giving tender expression to the pain of being flawed, of being human. It means being vulnerable and open to life, even when agony may result. It means facing mortality.

When I read these words I can’t help but think about my own deep wounds and how I have tried to negate them, cover over them or reject those aspects of self. Being open to pain, inviting it in for a cup of tea, does not come naturally to me! When I start to touch my own weakness with the written word an uneasy throbbing begins. First in the belly and then in my hands, alive with the energy of the wounded-ness. The injury, the failing, has twisted itself around my psyche and is silently alive inside me like a being, like a creature without a face but with one crooked eye open. I don’t think it drinks tea.

I remember the setting apart that the wound caused. For some, not all, but mostly for me. I always felt different, an outsider. I allowed that difference to drive me away from others and became occupied by a monstrous self-loathing. It became so much of who I was. It haunted me, casting a grim light over all of the rest of my life. I couldn’t be who I wanted to be because of the imperfection. I couldn’t see anything else though. Any talent was overshadowed, and my personality ripened only in relation to the wound, creating a symbiosis that helped facilitate years of drug addiction, eating disorders and other mental health conditions.

Now, outwardly, the wound has been mostly healed from surgery four years ago after meeting a wonderful specialist, with advanced technology. It’s hard to believe. When I look in the mirror, I don’t see it there anymore, but this experience also feels like a lie. The truth is that inwardly, the imperfection, the creature with a crossed eye is living and breathing still. I wear sunglasses a lot.

When Adrienne Rich talks about writing into, or out of the wounds, I think what she is getting at is the experience of paradox. Writing from the wounds of life (bringing forth creativity from a place of trauma or weakness) means not being comfortable with a single viewpoint. It means multiplying meanings and shifting boundaries and letting go of simplistic, one-dimensional narratives. For me this is captured in the spiritual idea of strength emerging from weakness.

When I came to understand it better, I realised my own vulnerability gave me an ability to relate, to be present with other wounds, with others that were wounded. Not all others, all the time, but some, especially women. I had a share in their pain. I also came to value the different ways of seeing that I had developed from feeling as an outsider most of the time. My character, or creative weirdness, while forged as a response to deep pain, could now also be accessed as strength, from an inner landscape of wild beauty, which included that creature with one crooked eye open. I came to see that deep ambiguity at the edges of life is a painful, and thrilling, place to be. In evoking my flawed humanity, I came to be free.